Chapter 4
The Hunter’s Den was an exclusive bar in the Royal Castle Hotel.
Tilly had never been to such a place before.
Her older sister, Dot, had once described how she’d spent time in such places when she was about Tilly’s age, working as a companion to an old lady holidaying in Eastbourne.
She’d said that they were the sort of places that the idle rich spent time in, overpriced and out of reach for ordinary people.
Nevertheless, Tilly was excited and intrigued to be entering one.
Fliss strolled in as if she were totally at home.
Tilly gasped as the room opened up before her.
It was like entering a fluffy white cloud.
Everything was in shades of cream with gold trimmings.
The bar was spacious with a scattering of Lloyd Loom easy chairs, placed around circular tables.
There were huge palms around the edges of the room, reaching up towards the ceiling, and a pianist sat at a baby grand piano, playing some non-intrusive jazz music that suffused the air with an elite atmosphere.
An ambience that, to Tilly, smelled of money.
The women were all dressed in up-to-the-minute fashions, some of them wearing elbow-length gloves and waving cigarette holders in a seductive manner.
Everything about them said ‘look at me’.
The men wore tuxedos and some sported neat moustaches.
Tilly felt somewhat underdressed, but Fliss showed no signs of any such discomfort and walked up to the ma?tre d’ in a swathe of confidence.
‘A table for two,’ she said.
‘Are you requiring dinner this evening, ladies, or just drinks?’ the ma?tre d’ enquired.
‘Just drinks, thank you,’ Fliss replied. ‘We have made other arrangements for dinner.’
The ma?tre d’ called a waiter over to show them to their table and Tilly whispered in Fliss’s ear, ‘I don’t have a clue what to order. My sister, Dot, talked about drinking a Tom Collins once, but I don’t know what that is.’
Fliss whispered back, ‘Don’t worry. I shall place the order for both of us.’
‘What can I get you?’ the waiter asked.
‘We’ll have two champagne cocktails, please,’ Fliss replied without flinching.
‘Would that be French style or Cafe Royal style, Miss?’ the waiter asked.
‘Oh, French style, of course,’ Fliss replied. ‘I never drink anything else.’
‘French style, of course,’ Tilly mimicked as the waiter walked away. ‘And how do you know so much about cocktails, Felicity Marcheson?’
‘When one is intent on finding a rich man,’ Fliss replied. ‘One must make a study of rich men’s ways, my dear Tilly. Stick close to me and I’ll teach you how.’
‘Silly me,’ Tilly said. ‘And there I was thinking that completing our training to become nurses was our main aim.’
‘For you, maybe,’ Fliss said, flicking her head back and scanning the room. ‘But for me that’s Plan B.’
Tilly felt a bit squiffy as they made their way back to the nurses’ home two hours later.
They had managed to make one champagne cocktail last all evening, but she wasn’t used to drinking.
Fliss, on the other hand, kept saying how one wasn’t enough and they would just have to save some more money for the next time.
The light from the hotel buildings soon faded as they turned down a side street. Fliss led the way and at the end of the street, the road ended and they walked onto the rough ground.
‘I can’t see a thing,’ Tilly said.
‘Your eyes will soon get adjusted,’ Fliss replied. ‘Just stick close to me.’
Dark shapes came into view and Tilly stopped.
‘Come on, it’s not far now,’ Fliss said. ‘We have to go through these trees, but it’s quite a short stretch and the path is clear.’
Tilly followed and had taken no more than a few steps when her shoes sank into a patch of soft mud.
‘Oh, no,’ Tilly shouted. ‘When did you last come this way, Fliss? You said a bit muddy. This is more than a bit.’
‘I thought you were a country girl and used to the mud.’ Fliss scoffed.
‘I am, but not when I’m wearing my only pair of smart shoes,’ Tilly complained.
‘They’ll spruce up. Get a move on,’ Fliss said. ‘That moon is going behind a cloud any minute, then we won’t be able to see a thing.’
Tilly moved as fast as she could, but, in her hurry, she didn’t see the tree root that lay in wait to capture her. She fell headlong onto the muddy path.
Fliss heard her cry out and turned to help her.
‘Now look what a mess I’m in,’ Tilly said.
‘It will dry,’ Fliss replied. ‘Look, there’s the hospital building. The sooner we get inside, the sooner we can clean you up.’
They came out of the trees, much to Tilly’s relief, but that relief didn’t last for long. Tilly stood at the top of a steep bank and looked down on the lights of the hospital.
‘Down that way?’ she gasped.
‘This is the only way,’ Fliss said. ‘If you don’t want to take the fast route to the bottom.’
Fliss began walking crabwise down the slope. ‘Sideways is best,’ she called.
As they crept around the main building towards the nurses’ home, Tilly had a horrible thought. They would be locked out — the doors closed for the night at half past ten and they were way past that.
Fliss, of course, had it all worked out. She had told the other nurses to leave the front door unlocked. What she hadn’t planned on was Sister Muriel Wilkins coming off extra duty and collecting her bicycle from the rack outside the nurses’ home.
She didn’t say anything when she first saw them, but Fliss started apologising to cover their tracks. It had no effect at all.
‘Report to Matron first thing in the morning,’ she said.
‘I will inform her that you are coming to explain your reasons for being out without a special pass. Though I doubt that any explanation would satisfy her. No amount of wheedling is going to get you out of this. Now whatever clandestine arrangements you’ve made with your fellow nurses to get back inside, you’d better get on with them. And clean yourself up, Nurse Truscott.’
Tilly was not looking forward to her dressing-down by Matron, but it had been fun. Fliss knew how to enjoy herself and Tilly had to admit it was worth the risk of getting caught.